Buskens (2017) reiterates the story of Kiss Brian Abraham tells of how Zambian women used Facebook to discuss matters related to sex, which caused backlash from Zambian culture due to its challenge of traditional identity of male hegemony, or dominance. Virtual platforms such as Facebook granted Zambian women an opportunity for empowerment and equality, but Facebook tends to honor community outcry and takes down content posted that does not favor the cultural norms of male dominance. This perpetuates unequal power and hinders the global movement for women’s rights. Certain topics of discussion that women had every right to discuss, such as sexual matters and expression, offended others, and therefore limited their sexual freedom– it even placed women at risk of sexual harassment in the streets by men quoting “religious and cultural principles,” as a negative consequence of striving for women’s rights.
In this case, Facebook honored the opinion of those who reported the offense they perceived in women exercising sexual agency. This situation represents the dilemma of free speech and what violates specific standards of what people have the right to post or share online, and what should not be allowed online. It seems that Facebook worked to help the cause of male hegemony in the way that it hurt women’s rights and perpetuated harassment of women offline, since Facebook could not directly stop men from harming women off of the platform. However, Facebook could have been used to circulate these atrocities and be utilized for the cause of social justice in revealing the harassment of men towards Zambian women, if it wanted to be of the most help in this situation. This would take a courageous soul to ignite the call to action by using the platform to do so, since it is merely a “medium that is the message” in the way that users dictate media’s uses and purposes.
Interestingly, the article ends to point out that social networking managers must work to be “gender aware” in a global society of imbalanced power of genders. The article makes a good point to also state, “Designing for social change is more challenging than designing for social harmony,” reflected in the backlash to what defines cultural standards and norms, even if the norms harm a particular group or gender. It may be hard, but is very necessary to more effectively monitor social media sites to allow for more people to gain and maintain rights and limit marginalization of certain communities and minority groups.
I really liked that you included the quote “Designing for social change is more challenging than designing for social harmony,” because this idea really stuck me. In some ways, I would expect that granting everyone exposure to a platform where everyone has a chance to be heard would be good for challenging norms and empowering minority communities. Unfortunately, we see that community guidelines on social sites like Facebook actually work to enforce the norms that are generally favorable towards men.
I found this incredibly interesting to read. I did not know that censorship was so selective and so prominent in modern media. I think that the finishing point, that social media creators and moderators need to work together to be more gender aware is a good point, however I do not know if that it is possible for this to happen given the commercial nature of these platforms.